1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for supporting communication in a virtual world.
2. Description of Related Art
In a virtual world (also referred to as a virtual space) generated by a server on a network, a character representing a user (hereafter referred to as avatar) can freely move around, such as going shopping, and communicating with other avatars, and therefor the user can enjoy the virtual world as if it were an extension of the real world. When avatars communicate with other avatars in the virtual world, it is important that the avatars perform some actions. Meanwhile, a major communication tool in the virtual world is the so-called chat, which is an exchange of messages inputted from the keyboard for example.
Previously, among methods for making an avatar have some motions in a chat, a widely used method is to prepare a large number of commands given in specific forms such as Iwavel. Here, the “wave” delimited by the slashes is a command indicating that an avatar waves its hand.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2000-076167 and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-160021 disclose other methods in which an avatar moves automatically in response to a reserved word appearing in a text in a chat. Furthermore, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-190034 discloses a method in which a user selects an emotion explicitly from a group of predetermined types of emotions so that his/her avatar can move according to the selected emotion.
However, such methods for making an avatar have a motion by use of a command have a problem that commands corresponding to a large number of motion definitions need to be prepared in the environment where there is no restriction in defining avatar motion. Moreover, even if such a large number of commands could be prepared, it would be difficult for a user to make full use of the commands. There is also a problem that an erroneous command inputted by a user would be treated as a remark made by his/her avatar, resulting in sending a meaningless remark to another avatar. Meanwhile, in the methods disclosed in Patent Documents 1 and 2, each of the reserved words needs to be assigned with a suitable motion.
Accordingly, an enormous amount of workload is required for assigning motions to the reserved words in the environment where there is no restriction in defining avatar motion. Moreover, an operation is uniquely defined for each of the reserved word, and thus an avatar sometimes moves differently from the way a user intends.
In contrast, in the method disclosed in Patent Document 3, avatar motions are selected by a user, and thus his/her avatar hardly moves differently from the way he/she intends. However, it is difficult for a user to promptly select a required motion when there are numerous types of motions. This is because, for example, if many icons each representing a motion are shown on the screen, a large part of the screen is occupied by the icons. Then, a scrollbar or the like may be provided to reduce the part occupied by the icons. As a result, it takes some time to select an intended motion.